As Doctors Renew Interest In Stents, Boston Scientific (BSX) May Get A Break

Several studies which showed that stents could cause blood clotting in the heart have done significant damage to the revenue for those products at Boston Scientific (BSX) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ). BSX trades near a multi-year low and there are even concerns about it making its debt service. The company has begun to sell off divisions to improve its cash position.

Now, doctors and the medical community are saying they were just kidding. Stents aren’t all that bad. They work better than those negative studies said. Maybe a lot of MDs were just short the BSX stock.

According to The New York Times "a year after safety questions about drug-coated heart stents prompted doctors to change treatment for hundreds of thousands of cardiac patients, many physicians say the medical community overreacted and should now reverse course." The paper adds the medical reports of blood clots were amplified by sometimes alarmist media coverage, as when one cable news network described drug-coated stents as “tiny time bombs.”

About $1 billion of stent sales per annum have gone away. Some of that may be due to drugs which now do a better job of keeping blood moving through blocked arteries.

But, the public is afraid. It is bound to be. The dangers of the little devices have been covered everywhere. And that means stent sales aren’t coming back.

Douglas A. McIntyre